The present invention generally relates to content retrieval and more specifically to methods and apparatus for retrieving content in response to a search request.
With the advent of the Internet and the multitude of web pages and media content available to a user over the World Wide Web (WWW), there has become a need to provide the users with streamlined approach to filter and obtain desired information from the WWW. Search systems and processors have been developed to meet the needs of users to obtain desired information. Examples of the technologies may be accessed through Yahoo!, Google, and other sites. Typically, a user inputs a query and a search process returns one or more links (in the case of searching web), documents and/or references (in the case of a different search corpus related to the query), etc.
Typically, when a query is received, a search may be performed with information in a generic or default corpus, such as the WWW. This may be referred to as a general search. Also, some search systems allow a user to perform searches in subdomains that include specialized content. For example, Yahoo! includes content that is organized in a number of subdomains. An example of a subdomain may be automobiles, shopping, news, classifieds, and the like. In order for a user to perform a search in one of these subdomains, the user needs to know which subdomains the user desires to search and also how to access these subdomains. For example, a user may have to navigate through links to select a subdomain to search. Accordingly, the ease of performing a general search is lost because a user has to select or specify a subdomain to search. Additionally, when a subdomain search is requested, a general search is not performed.